Hope Les Schwab Is Wrong

This is a discussion on Hope Les Schwab Is Wrong within the Off Topic & Humor Discussion forums, part of the The Back Porch category; This was emailed to me. Some what long but an interesting read, at least in my opinion. Nothing on Snopes to verify it.
HERE'S HOPING ...

Les Schwab's Prineville office was hardly memorable. He seemed to
have that Sam Walton flair for not needing to impress anyone with the fact that he had made it. After chatting for a few minutes, Les
suggested that we hop in his "rig" and take a tour of some of his
local facilities, beginning with the biggest tire warehouse imaginable.

Between tour stops, Les and I talked politics. He was for the most
part a staunch conservative and we agreed on most issues. We had a pleasant visit, which lasted for a couple of hours, but in the end it
was not a financially profitable trip.

Eventually, Les wrote me a check for $500, which for a man of his
stature and ability, was a mere pittance. But unlike some rich guys,
who will write you a thousand dollar check and act like they are
Donald Trump, Les told me right up front why he wasn't giving more.
Here is what he said, as best I remember his words: "Bill, you're a
young man and I admire you for having the energy to keep up the
fight, but I think it's too late to save this country. We are going
to have to bottom out and start over before we can set things right again."

Based on the context of my conversation with Les leading up to that
statement, Les meant that in his opinion it was too late to save this
country because the socialist mindset, the entitlement mentality, was
far too entrenched in the American people to reverse the trend.

I remember walking away from our visit liking the man, but feeling a
bit depressed.

Time will tell whether Les Schwab was right to have such a gloomy
outlook on politics. I have seen nothing in the decade that has passed since our meeting to prove him wrong. But this I know for
sure: If those of us, who believe in liberty and free enterprise and
private property rights, give up, then indeed the battle is lost. The prophesy becomes self-fulfilling. We lose by default. We lose because the other side called a war, and our side never showed up.

Maybe Les Schwab was wiser than I, or maybe he was just getting
tired, again no pun intended. After all, Mr. Schwab was well up in
years by the time I met him. But if I have my choice between sitting
back and watching my country fall apart or fighting the mindset that
is eating it up like a cancer, I would rather go down swinging.

If we continue down the road toward tried and failed socialism, a
road we are definitely on, we will indeed bottom out. Les was right about that. But it will be ugly. Our children and grandchildren will suffer times of great shortage of the basic needs of life and even times of abject poverty. What comes out of that darkness is by no means certain. It might be a rebirth of American liberty. But it is just as likely that what comes next will be some form of totalitarianism.

So, I hope Les Schwab was wrong about it being too late. And in my
opinion, I owe it to my kids to make sure he was.

Bill Sizemore is a registered Independent who works as executive director of the Oregon Taxpayers Union, a statewide taxpayer organization. Bill was the Republican candidate for governor in 1998. He and his wife Cindy have four children, ages eight to thirteen, and live on 36 acres in Beavercreek, just southeast of Oregon City, Oregon.

Bill Sizemore is considered one of the foremost experts on the
initiative process in the nation, having placed dozens of measures on
the statewide ballot. Bill was raised in the logging communities of
the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, and moved to Portland in
1972. He is a graduate of Portland Bible College, where he taught for
two years.

......Les meant that in his opinion it was too late to save this
country because the socialist mindset, the entitlement mentality, was far too entrenched in the American people to reverse the trend......

I'm afraid he may be absolutely right, but we have to continue to fight against it and try to get back to the work ethic and personal responsibility that built this country.

As morbid of a thought this is, I'd be interested to see comparisons to the bread lines during the great depression and what they would be like now. I have a feeling men and women wouldn't be simply standing in line waiting to get their bowl of soup and a loaf of bread. I bet they would look more like some of the problems that occurred during the lines waiting for gas in the '70's (I forget the year as I was born in '73).

I'm sure a lot of you have already received this video, but it does tend to exemplify the current attitude of a lot of society. I changed the name of the video to prevent any political connection.Video